Thursday, October 07, 2010

Well gee, it looks like Language Log and Pharyngula are BOTH taking a more, shall we say, aggressive moderation policy on unwanted comments. Since I do love jumping on bandwagons, I think it's only fair to warn you folks that any perpetrators of the following activities in the blog comments, email to the TV list, posts on hosts' Facebook pages, or calls to the TV show, will be hunted down and killed.

"Hey, there's a movie I just discovered that really opened my eyes. It pretty much blows Christianity out of the water, and it's got some other interesting information too. It's called Zeitgeist. Ever heard of it?"

"Dear sirs, I agree with nearly everything you say, but I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about your blind foolishness in accepting the official government story about vaccines."

"I was trolling a Christian message board / harassing my religious acquaintance in Gmail chat. The guy said something that got me stuck. What should I say next?" (Copy and paste job of five days worth of conversation.)

"The B**BQUAKE - 911Let me show you the FATE OF TRAITORS...how can these HEADLESS IDIOTS BET AGAINST GOD!!!they tried to BULLDOZE the entire METAPHYSICAL DIMENSION...they LOST THE WAR......the blood and bodies of the atheist movement...you mofos killed MICKEY MOUSE!!!!"(Cue frothing at the mouth and incoherent muttering.)

I'd never had any interest in doing any of those things before, but if they're forbidden they must be good... ;)

The problem with Zeitgeist is that there are so many wild leaps in it. They make a decent enough general point at the start in that religions tend to be very similar, and duplicate each other. They just take the ball and run with it. And keep running. And pretty soon they free up their arms to run quicker, leaving the ball well behind.

ad 1) I guess its annoying if people do it deceptively like the caller from last week but what about atheists calling in and playing the role of the advocatus dei in general?

Don't care if people play devil's advocate if they are honest about it, although it's certainly a lot less compelling than people discussing positions they actually hold. If it has to be an atheist, I would much rather talk about his or her own experiences and challenges as an atheist than present two atheists explaining things they don't believe. Remember, we GET theist callers on the show so THEY can present what THEY believe. There really isn't a need for more people to present those points of view in an incomplete or faulty way.

#1 is really more about people calling in to test out their standup act. Or as James Earl Jones put it in "Soul Man": "If you insist on taking up my class time making jokes, please see to it that they are funny."

I had this thought the other day: Vaccines are like seatbelts. Imagine a friend who heard a story about a guy who got in a car accident and their car caught on fire and taking off their seatbelt added 4 seconds to the time of their escape and as a result they burned to death, and this is why your friend doesn't wear seatbelts anymore. You'd think they're an idiot, right?

If you never wear a seatbelt, your life may not be any different - IF YOU'RE LUCKY. Same thing with vaccines. You might get away without them, but not getting them is just plain stupid.

Completely agree on #1. Quit being lazy and look up the counter arguments yourself.

"I am really an atheist too! Now we can all be happy and agree on everything!"

Heck, just one honest theist 2 threads ago shot the comments up to more than 200. So much more interesting to hear discussions between genuinely disagreeing people.

So actual atheists, do us all a favor and try to resist calling the show. E-mail will work just fine for all the kudos and love-ins. This is especially important considering the new shorter length of the show.

If you absolutely must, at least be honest about what you are calling in for. Otherwise you are boring the rest of us to tears and wasting valuable air time.

I would add one more for the T.V. show... if you called last week, please don't call back too soon, unless of course it's a new topic. I know there is no way to control who calls in, but I would rather listen to the hosts talk amongst themselves. The caller from California springs to mind. When the U.S. was made, they tipped it up on edge and all the fruits and nuts rolled out to California.

Now that they nerfed AETV,** there should be a Rule 1A forbidding awkward, inarticulate atheist n00bs from calling just to get a pat in the back and inflate their egos for being so awesomely rational.

I'd rather hear a half a dozen smug theists bloviating about Pascal's Wager thinking they have discovered the ultimate godless trump card than one more:

Caller: "um... hi guys, love the show, you're all so logical and cool. I'm an atheist too. I was like, talking to my friend the other day and he was like, 'dude, you gotta believe in Jesus' so I says to him, I says, 'NO WAY, THERE'S NO PROOF!! LOL.'

Host: "Uh, well, that's not quite... I mean, sure, there's no reasonable evidence to believe there are such things as gods"

Caller: "Haha totally, religion's a delusion, right?"

Fast forward through some more correct, but hideously-mangled arguments and we've burned 5 to 10 minutes of the show. And we've nothing to show for it.

I'm not trying to be mean, I know new atheists(not Gnu Atheists :P) need to receive encouragement, sharpen their intellectual claws and feel like they aren't alone but there are forums, the atheist list(atheist-list@yahoogroups.com) and the show's e-mail(tv@atheist-community.org) for that.

One hour, in my lil' ol' opinion, is not enough to humour fans. I'm already dreading the possible loss of Ms. Harris' presentations. Imagine a world without "Transcendental Dice." What a sorry state of affairs that would be.

** - I know it was probably for all shows so they could have more programs, but fanboys never say "they fixed an exploit," it's always "OMFG DEY TOTLY NERFD PALLYS... GHEY." :D

My parents got me "what the bleep do we know?". At first, I thought it was interesting (I didn't know anything of it beforehand). It has good discussions up to the description of the quantum nature of light.

Then, it started getting weird. I was starting to get a BS aftertaste.

Then, they got to the point where they were talking about freezing water patterns based on different emotions (it was years ago, so memory is foggy).

And I was like, "... what? That's stupid." I wanted to see the work, see how the procedure was done. I was curious if each pattern was repeatable. They went from there into how we can shape our lives and fortunes just from our thoughts, or something.

I realize this one isn't as easy to prevent with just a rule, but...the whole thing with Pat calling two shows in a row and the people on the show not realizing it...and her getting to spout her crap twice...it'd be nice if we could avoid that in the future too.

I think the zeitgeist film (first one) and the later ones are so completely different that I'm left confused at why the sequels are even called zeitgeist at all.

There's this thing called the zeitgeist movement and I've met people in my local area that support it and it actually has nothing to do with the first zeitgeist movie. I've seen theists make conspiracy theories about how it's a massive atheist movement to destroy religion with lies (since the first movie had a lot of errors pointed out given its controversial nature) but in fact it's just about society building and human behaviour and the like.

So what you get is a movie about 9/11 and religion, sequels that have NOTHING to do with that anymore, a movement completely detached from most of the movie points but with the same name, and now theists linking them all together and making their own conspiracy theories out of them. Confusing as all hell but still interesting. I wonder if any hosts on the atheist experience know of the later movies or movement and their detachment from the first one and this whole link with them all by theists. It's something I was thinking of calling in with but meh... money's tight, even for Skype.

I can agree with you on some of the 9-11 claims and conspiracies regarding Zeitgeist parts 2, 3 & addendum but, I cannot agree with hardly anything you've said about ZG part 1. I've done my own research long before the Zeitgeist movie was ever heard of and your claims are wrong - embarrassingly wrong and you're embarrassing all atheists by repeating the nonsense I've seen in your youtube video #634. The comments there by 'Hercules2345' proved that.

I notice that most here at the atheist experience consistently commit the fallacy of 'guilt by association' by conflating part 1/Acharya S with everything else. Acharya S had nothing to do with parts 2 or 3. She has consistently substantiated part 1 when it has come from her own work and I've yet to see anyone here go to her website or videos or forum or read any of her books or even make any attempt to contact her at all. So, the anti-Acharya S position here is about as intellectually dishonest as it gets. As an atheist, I find your website & videos regarding ZG1 & Acharya S a monumental disappointment that isn't any better than fundy Xians. Take that as constructive criticism.

If you have any interest in being honest invite her on your show via the phone or something but, it would be wise if you knew her work first or you will look like a dumb-ass. Or do a show on her mythicist position.

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PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.